


Control Issues

by Mithen



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: M/M, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-22
Updated: 2007-09-21
Packaged: 2017-11-03 03:10:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/376458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Superman gets mind-controlled and tries to kill Batman every other week, it's probably inevitable he and Bruce would develop something of a kink about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 5 Times Superman was Mind-Controlled and DIDN'T Try to Kill Batman

__Monday:_ _  


  
__Superman came to himself to find the vastness of space all around him and before him, the looming form of Starro, the mind-controlling space starfish.  He snapped into combat-ready position, thinking loudly at the monster:  //Whatever sinister purpose you have brought me here for, know that I will fight you with all my being!  I will never submit to your foul machinations!  I...//

From the giant bulk before him there was a sudden burst of an emotion like pleading, and an intense sensation:  itchiness.  Superman stared at the starfish.  Then, sighing, he applied judicious heat vision to the gap between Starro's third and fourth arms. _  
_  
A wave of relief poured off the space-starfish.  Superman's mind filled with the crushing weight of Starro's thoughts:  //You have served well, small being.  Go now with my gratitude for your service.//

Superman flew back toward Earth, rolling his eyes. __  


  
_  
_Tuesday:_   
_   


  
____The Mad Hatter ducked away from Batman's swing, cringing.  "I just wanted someone to have tea with me!" he shrieked, dodging and fleeing into the night.

Batman kicked down the door to find a strange tableau:  a long table with elaborate place settlings.  Robots shaped like the Dormouse and March Hare sat at the table, going through the motions of serving tea. __  


  
__Standing at one end of the table, his hand resting on the back of a chair, stood Superman.  His eyes were blank and glassy-turquoise;  one of the Hatter's mind-control cards was tucked into the blue headband resting on his dark hair.  He was wearing a short, frilly blue dress with a white pinafore, white stockings, and patent-leather Mary Jane shoes.

Batman studied him for a while, waving a hand in front of the opaque blue eyes.  "Curioser and curioser," he muttered, smiling slightly.  Then he braced himself mentally and reached out to pluck the mind-control card from the headband. __  


  
__Wednesday:  
_  
_ "No, I finally managed to break free on my own when she had me attack the loggers.  I guess the distance made her control more tenuous.  What's really annoying is she could have just _asked_.  I don't like loggers poaching on virgin forests any more than Ivy does, I would have been happy to just round them up and stop them."

"Superman--"

"--But _no_ , she's got to pull out the old lipstick and send me off like a puppet to do her evil whims."

"Clark--"

"Yes, Bruce?"

"She kissed you?" __  


  
__"Well, sure.  That's how the lipstick works.  She pretended to be a fan asking for my autograph and laid one on me.  Next thing I know, I'm flying off to Oregon to terrify some loggers."

"She only kissed you, then?  You and she didn't do...anything else?"

"What?  Why...Bruce, are you _jealous_?  I didn't know you had a thing for Pamela Isley!"

"...I don't."

"Are you _blushing_ , Bruce?  Oooh, Batman and Ivy sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S--"

"Clark?"

"Yes, Bruce?"

"Please shut up."

"Oh yes, feel free to tell me what to do, every two-bit crook in the universe goes after me the minute they find a mind-control device, why should you be any different?  Hey, where are you going?" __  


  
__"I've got work to do, Superman."

"What are you worki--damn, I hate when he does that." _  
 **  
** _Thursday_ **  
**_  
As it turned out, the situation was largely based on a misunderstanding.  The White Martians were preparing for another assault on the JLA and noted that their telepathic reading of Superman indicated that he secretly felt intensely passionate hatred toward Batman.  It seemed logical to drive a wedge into the heart of the JLA by unleashing the full force of that hatred, so they bent their mental energies toward unblocking those repressed feelings and urging the Kryptonian toward expressing them.  It had taken weeks of work, but eventually they had their breakthrough.  Superman had abruptly bolted from his Fortress and made a beeline toward the Watchtower and Batman.

The results, however, were far from what the White Martians had expected.

As J'onn J'onnz explained later to a deeply mortified Superman, White Martians are apparently "tone-deaf" about emotions.  They can perceive strong and weak emotions, but not subtle differences between strong emotions.

Like, say, the difference between negative passion and positive passion. __  


  
_  
_Friday_   
_   


  
__Clark was holed up in his room in the Watchtower and refusing all pleas to come out by Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and the rest.  Every time he even considered leaving, he would once again see himself pouring his heart out to Bruce on bended knee, confessing how much he loved and cherished and adored and desired him.  Batman had had to call J'onn to come drag him away, still ranting about Bruce's beautiful eyes and brilliant mind and devastatingly sexy voice.

Clark groaned and covered his eyes.  No, he was never going to leave this room again.

What was worse, he had meant every word of it.  Still did.  He had just been pretending he didn't, for such a long time.

Superman was deeply sorry the JLA had defeated the White Martians without him this time, because he dearly wished he could make them suffer a fraction as much as he had suffered over the last day.

Mid-groan, Clark suddenly uncovered his eyes and sat up.

This wouldn't have been a problem except that he hadn't intended to. _  
_  
As his body moved toward his desk, Clark struggled to get it back under control, to no avail.  Was he going to tear open the Watchtower and kill everyone in it?  Or merely do something deeply humiliating again?

He hoped he could be forgiven for almost wishing the former.

Apparently, however, he was going to make his way to the desk and pick up a notebook and a pencil.  In a bold, slanting, and familiar script, Clark watched his hand write:

  
**This is B.  Working on Grodd-based device.  Seems to be functioning.**   


Superman snarled through locked vocal chords and tried to wrest his hand back.

  
**Can sense some of your emotional state as well.  Interesting.** __  


  
__There was an oddly long pause while Superman's hand hovered over the notepad and Clark tried not to think about how miserable he was.  Then his body was maneuvered carefully to sit back down on the bed, and his hand started writing again.

  
**You won't come here to talk.  And I have nothing to apologize for, so I won't go there.  This seemed...**  Again Clark's hand paused.  **...wisest.**  


  
****Clark tried not to feel anything beyond annoyance and proper alpha-male aggression, but the other emotions welled up behind it unbidden:  embarrassment, regret, a sort of pained cherishing, sorrow...

  
**Idiot.** Clark's hand stabbed at the paper fiercely, lapsing into almost a scrawl.  Then it went back to being careful script. __  


  
__**Apparently you need some proof that being controlled doesn't have to be so terrible.  Clark.**   His left hand reached up and brushed through his hair, very carefully, trailing down and across the nape of his own neck. 

Clark blinked in surprise--blinking being about all he could do right now.  His surprise become confusion, and the beginnings of something else, as his hand traced along his jaw.  His right hand wrote, **I can feel that,** and Clark brushed his left along the insignia on his chest, exploring, trailing lower, agonizingly slow...

His right hand paused at the waistline of his uniform, his own warm fingers slipping across the skin of his waist, brushing lower almost tentatively.  **I can feel you.**   The handwriting wasn't as careful as it had been before, the cautious script slanting across the paper diagonally, the loops sharper and less controlled.  **Feel what you feel.  Clark.  Let me.  I want.** Clark's free hand raised to trace his mouth, touching his lips gently.  The handwriting was almost a scribble now.  **Please.** __ **  
**  
Clark would have nodded if it were possible, but he merely felt his assent as strongly as he could.

The notebook fell to the floor and Bruce lowered Clark to the bed, hands deft and sure and controlled, making Clark lose control, both of them losing control together at last.


	2. Losing Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark learns mind-control can be a lot of fun, when done properly.

Superman was lying on his narrow cot in his sparse Watchtower quarters.  His hands were pulling down his tights with clumsy urgency, his body tense and taut.  
  
Which would have been more enjoyable if he were in control of his hands and his body.  
  
He felt a sudden panicked desire to struggle against the device Bruce was using on him, to make sure he could still wrench control away from the other man if necessary.  Yes, he had given permission, but--it was terrifying to be trapped in his body like this.  Bruce could do anything to him, could use his own hands to hurt him...  
  
Those hands--his hands--came back up to cup his balls, to circle the base of his cock, and Clark felt the wave of his panic crest and break into something else.  Not passivity, not resignation, but knowledge, as steadying as a warm hand on his arm:  if he couldn't trust Bruce with this, he could trust no one in the universe.  Bruce would never hurt him willingly.  
  
Never.  
  
His hands paused as a rush of elation went over him, then moved up to brush his lips, touch the corners of his eyes.  Bruce had said he could feel some of what Clark felt through the link;  could he feel Clark giving himself over, letting trust lift him like joy?  Clark hoped so.  
  
He wished briefly he could feel some of what Bruce was feeling as well.    
  
Lying there, his emotions and reactions laid bare, his own body merely an instrument for pleasure, Clark reveled in the sensation of his own skin beneath his hands, his own hands touching him more gently and lovingly than he ever would.  Fingers skimming down across his body again to finally grasp and stroke himself, delicately at first, until Clark felt he could hardly bear it, he wanted more, more, and harder, stronger...  
  
His hand clenched more, tighter, until it was applying pressure no mortal could give him, and he would have groaned aloud if he still had control of his vocal cords.  _Yes..._ all the intensity he craved and couldn't get from non-powered sex, but without the predictability of masturbation.  _Bruce, Bruce, you're making me feel so good,_ he tried to think as coherently as possible, hoping some of it got through, that at least the pleasure got through.  He wanted to thrust against the sensation, wanted to _move_ , but all he could do was _feel_.  
  
It felt amazing.  
  
Desire was spiraling through him like white heat, his thoughts unable to focus on anything more than sensation, when he realized one of his hands had slipped beneath him and was caressing his ass, stroking, slick with his own wetness, exploring.  He felt another jolt of worry and would have tensed against the coaxing finger--but his body wouldn't tense when he wanted it to, of course.  Instead it stayed relaxed, yielding easily to one gentle finger.  He wasn't sure he wanted it, wasn't sure he wanted that sensation at all, but with no ability to freeze or flinch it wasn't that bad, just a little uncomfortable.   
  
Not really so uncomfortable.  
  
It was--  
  
Fingers far surer and competent than his own should ever be crooked slightly, and Clark felt a pulse of pleasure run through his body, almost agonizingly good.  He heard a grunt of pleasure and wasn't sure if he had broken the control in that moment of crystalline sensation, or if Bruce was speaking through him.  _Bruce, do that again, do it again, please do it again,_ he thought as fiercely as he could, and when his fingers obliged he felt language slip away from him entirely and he was reduced to little more than a prism of light, refracting pleasure and surrender and trust and joy.  The one-way link thrummed between them like a chord, like a cord, and his last true thought was a wistful acceptance that it would only ever be this one way, that he could never ask Bruce to make himself this vulnerable, to feel this overwhelmed and overcome with ecstasy.  That was all right.  
  
He would savor it enough for both of them.  
  
His climax was sharp, silent, and almost terrifying in its intensity, if anything had remained in him that could still feel terror.  
  
Clark felt the weight of Bruce's will leave his limbs slowly, and he flexed a sticky hand in front of his eyes, both relieved and disappointed to be able to control it once again.   
  
There was a JLA meeting that evening, and Superman got through chairing it with Batman's opaque eyes on him, seeing through him to the desires inside.  Superman felt like he was trembling in front of everyone, remembering--merely the touch of his own hands.  Bruce had never once touched him.  Maybe he never would.  Was this the way it would be now, a sort of long-distance affair which Bruce would never have to fully acknowledge?  
  
That would be enough for Clark.  
  
As it was, it was more than enough to drive him nearly to distraction with lust.  
  
He cut the meeting as short as possible and went back to his quarters.  Would Bruce be planning on another encounter?  For all Clark knew, this had been a one-time experience.  He closed his eyes as the door slid shut behind him, struggling with a surge of depression at the thought.  
  
When he opened them, he saw the simple gold circlet on the table.  
  
Next to it a note in a familiar precise hand:  _  
  
Your turn._


	3. Trust...But Verify

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark gets his turn to control Batman.  Or does he?

Bruce Wayne sat in his sparse quarters on the Watchtower, wearing only a robe.  Clark, chivalrous as ever, had told him well in advance when he planned to use Bruce's Grodd-adapted mind-control circlet, giving Bruce time to prepare himself.  Bruce had known he would, of course.  The idea of Clark snatching him out of some meeting with wicked intentions was...well, it wouldn't have been in-character for Superman at all, certainly.

Bruce adjusted his robe a bit fussily.  It was his softest, most comfortable robe.  Clark wouldn't be able to feel the specific sensations Bruce was feeling, wouldn't be able to feel the silk, only the pleasure the textures gave Bruce.  Wouldn't be able to feel Bruce's body, only the arousal the touch evoked.  Wouldn't feel the physical orgasm, just the feeling and emotions it created in Bruce.

Bruce took a deep, steadying breath at the idea of Clark feeling his arousal, his _emotions_ , directly.  This was all easy for Clark:  Clark the ever-giving, the trusting, the always-open.  Not so easy for him.  He tried to relax.  He wanted Clark to feel his trust, to know that Bruce was comfortable, that he was willing to give Clark full control.  Things like that were very important to the boy scout.

Other things, however, were very important to the Dark Knight.

Bruce twitched his fingers again around the little switch in his left hand.  All it took was the merest flex, and he knew he could manage that tiny tic even when under full mind-control.  He touched the little button again like a talisman.  He was sorry he had to deceive Clark this little bit, but he was sure he couldn't manage it at all otherwise.

And he did want to give Clark the same satisfaction he had felt as he had controlled and moved the other man's body, forcing it to feel pleasure.  He remembered the rush of surrender he had felt from the other man, the trust as intoxicating as any wine.  Clark deserved to feel some of that, even if Bruce had to cheat a bit to give it to him.

He had been ready for some time, had in fact become aroused just remembering what it had felt like last time, but was still surprised when he felt his own right hand lift without his volition.  It stopped in the air and, ridiculously, waved at him;  Bruce would have laughed if he were not suddenly unable to control his vocal cords.

He felt a touch of panic and focused for a moment on the switch in his hand, solid and safe.  He could break free any time.  He could.

He traced his own cheekbones very gently, a finger moving across a brow, smoothing his own hair, then dropping to touch his lips lightly.  Then his hand slid down his throat to his chest, caressing and exploring.  Out of his control, his own body out of his control...it should have been his worst nightmare, it should have panicked him beyond belief.  And yet there was something soothing about the feeling, about relaxing into it and letting Clark make him trace his own scars as if they were precious and not just mistakes etched into his skin.  No need to panic.  He could still feel his switch in the palm of his left hand, even as it slipped across his ribs.

His hands stayed above his waistline a surprisingly long time;  Bruce would have expected Clark to be eager and zealous, but instead he traced circle after looping circle on his own skin, patterns almost hypnotic in their grace and ease.  He waited for the touch to move to caress his erection. 

And waited.

His nipples were teased and taunted and he was unable to lean his body into the touch;  frustration and something else, something wilder, grew in him.  Clark knew, he thought in a welter of sensation, Clark could _feel_ how much he wanted to be touched, why wasn't he doing it?  He could feel it as much as Bruce could, the tension and longing like a wave in him, building higher, all the depth of the ocean beneath it, arousal only the pale foam on top of the sea.  His hands brushed his thighs gently, flirtatiously, almost shyly, then drew fingernails along the inside of his thighs to the very edge of pain, like white heat in lines leading upward.  Agonized ecstasy struggled to break free, he wanted Clark to touch him--wished for a blank and rapturous instant that Clark were there in person so he could beg for his touch, could lean into him and give way before him, the sea before the sand.

Then he was stroking himself, he hadn't chosen to and he couldn't stop it and it was wonderful, the breaking wave beyond all control.  The noises he couldn't make were stuttering static in his mind, fire raging, desire raw and pure beyond words or expression.  He let Clark take him, possess him, his own hands stroking him harder, more urgently, his climax seething within him, breaking past all boundaries.  It surged through him and he submitted to it, submitted to Clark, knowing in the roots of his soul this was the only person he could ever give himself up to like this.  He heard his own voice speaking into the silent room:  "So beautiful, you're so beautiful, Bruce, my wild beauty, you're mine," and joyous assent twined around his orgasm and colored it through and through.

  
**: : :**   


Bruce lifted his hands to pull his robe back together and was surprised to find they were shaking.  He looked down at his hands.

His empty hands.

The control switch was gone, and he had no idea when he had dropped it or where it had gone.  He hadn't even noticed.

There was a polite chime at the door.  "Enter," he said a bit hoarsely, touching his throat, remembering Clark's words spoken through his voice.

The door opened to reveal Clark in a sweat shirt and jeans, his eyes wide.  "I didn't--"  He broke off, staring at Bruce as if he'd never seen him before.  "I didn't know you trusted me that much."

Bruce looked down at his empty hands again, then back up at Clark, almost wonderingly.  "I didn't either."


	4. Self Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark and Bruce meet to try their mind-control sex games face-to-face for the first time.

Bruce watched as Clark settled the circlet on his forehead, making him look like a rather self-conscious king.  The weight of the matching circlet was heavy on Bruce's brow.  Clark looked nervous.  He fidgeted with his robe, brushing invisible lint off it as if to reassure himself that he could still control his own limbs.

Bruce felt nervous too, but he wasn't so foolish as to show it.  They'd been playing with the mind-control circlets for almost a month now, taking turns controlling each other, and this was the first time they'd ever used them while in the same room. 

Bruce wasn't sure who exactly had suggested it.  It seemed a logical next step, to meet at the Manor and try this.  And yet now, looking at the nervous, handsome face across the room from him, he felt...uneasy.  It was one thing to be carrying on a weird yet satisfying long-distance relationship;  another altogether to be physically _there_ , able to...touch and taste and...

He broke off that line of thought.  "Are you ready?"  Clark nodded.  Bruce hadn't even needed to insist he'd be the one "in control" in this encounter;  they both had taken it for granted.  He reached up and touched the ruby embedded in the circlet.

Clark's face went oddly, unnervingly blank, the animation draining from his body.  Bruce almost broke the connection immediately:  in the past, unable to _see_ the other man, he hadn't had to look into the eyes of what seemed suddenly to be a life size doll.  It was no different than before, he reminded himself.  Clark was there, waiting--in fact, Bruce could feel the tiny pulse of awareness in his mind that was his link to Clark.

He felt the impulse grasp him to go to Clark now and open the robe, reveal all that strong bare skin, run his hands across it in abandon.  Even as he thought about it, though, he met the man's blank, glassy stare and shuddered to himself.  He'd be able to feel if Clark disliked it, but...he wasn't sure he'd find embracing a mannequin satisfying.

The pulse in his mind that was Clark turned querying and somewhat impatient.  "Don't rush me," Bruce answered the emotion.  "I'm busy admiring you."  Which he was, as long as he didn't meet those flat blue eyes.

On a whim, he started to run his hands along the borders of the robe, very slowly, letting his fingers brush his own skin.  The thread of emotion quickened and brightened as he slid the robe open a tiny bit.  "It's nothing you haven't seen before in the infirmary, Clark," he murmured, but the link remained avid and hungry.  "We've been so busy _feeling_ each other, maybe it's time I forced you to just sit there and watch me.  Watch me enjoy looking at you."  The link thrummed with an interest that left him feeling giddy, but Clark's face remained slack and expressionless. 

He caressed his own skin lightly, letting Clark's interest start echoes of arousal in him.  He felt a moment's pang of panic-- _what am I doing, right in front of Superman, am I crazy?--_ but took a deep breath.  Clark couldn't move.  Couldn't stop him.  Couldn't...well, couldn't laugh at him for being foolish.  That would be the worst possibility.  The link was taut with intensity, but Clark's body betrayed no reaction.  It couldn't, unless Bruce told it to.

He sat down again, legs spread, and slid open the robe enough to slide his hand within, cupping his own balls gently, enjoying the surge of energy in the link.  "All you can do is watch me," he said.  "Watch me do this to myself, as I think of you.  Think of your body against mine, all hard."  He felt the surge transmuting from the emotional to the physical, felt himself growing hard under his own touch.  "Oh Clark."  His breaths were quickening.  "Hard, pushing against me with that beautiful body of yours, demanding--"  He broke off with a groan, unwilling to finish the sentence, feeling Clark's ferocious interest through the link, blazing.

It was good, so good.  He looked up to meet Clark's eyes--and was shocked anew at their blankness.  He found himself struggling to sense some kind of life in them, some kind of response.  It was oddly...unsatisfying, to sit here masturbating in front of someone with no reaction that he could see.  It would be more arousing, he thought uncomfortably, if Clark were in another room.  That way he could focus on the emotion, and not on that empty face...

His arousal was fading despite his own touch, despite the heat of the link, a heat that turned puzzled and questioning as his ardor cooled.  Bruce struggled to concentrate and lose himself in the moment again, but it was no good, and after a moment he sighed and rested his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands, looking at Clark.  "This isn't working," he mused aloud.

He watched Clark's face for a moment, considering their options.  There was only one he could see.

He stood and went to Clark.  The circlet was warm in his hands as he slid it from Clark's brow.  As the metal lost contact with Clark's skin, Clark's mouth opened, but Bruce cut him off.  "--Don't say anything.  Don't move," he said.  He had meant to sound brusque and commanding, but instead it came out...silky.  Confiding.

Clark froze with his mouth half-open, then closed it carefully.  Bruce saw his Adam's apple bob once as he swallowed.

Bruce backed up with the circlet in his hands, pulling his off as well and placing them together on the end table.  He sat down.  "Don't move," he repeated, looking at Clark.

Clark's eyes were bright, vivid, heavy with lust.  Bruce could see his breath quickening as he stared.  "Watch me," Bruce whispered.  "You won't move.  Because I told you not to.  Watch me."  Without any transition at all he felt like he was blazing with arousal, hard and solid and demanding.  Clark's eyes followed Bruce's hands downward, downward, to where they twitched the cloth aside and gripped himself, not tenderly.  Bruce grunted and thrust into his own hands and Clark's eyelashes flickered just a fraction, the muscles of his face tightening.  Bruce could see the other man's arousal pushing against the cloth of his robe, but Clark didn't move.  Bruce could see the tendons in his hands twitch, see the muscles bunch ever so slightly, but the other man restrained himself.

The sight of Superman, mightiest being on Earth, sitting unmoving, aroused and unsatisfied because Bruce told him not to move, was like fire on his nerve endings, making his motions jerky and disjointed, pleasure ravaging him.  Bruce heard himself making sounds.  The sounds were words:  "Yes.  Watch me.  Don't move.  _Choose_ not to move, because I say so.  My words.  My will."  Clark's arousal was imperious, jutting hard against the robe, and Clark's eyes were slitted against pleasure:  The pleasure of vibrant stillness, of leashed potential.  Power between them like a cord, taut and straining, more tangible than the link had ever been.  Control.  True control.  Bruce's own control seemed to be slipping somehow;  slipping, cracking, pleasure stabbing sweetly through the cracks into his soul.  He made some wordless sound that seemed to be nothing but want and need.  Clark didn't move.

Bruce saw a lazy smile, smug and wicked, curve Clark's mouth, his greedy eyes roaming Bruce's body, Bruce felt like the world was unraveling around him.   "You--You--"  he wasn't sure if the next word was going to be an epithet or an endearment;  the two seemed jumbled together in his mind.  "Come here," he gasped, and it was a command, not a plea, not at all.  "Come here.  Now."

Clark's mouth was on his in time to taste the "now," his hands on Bruce in time to catch him before he broke entirely.  No distance between them now, no control beyond what they would always have over each other.

**: : :**

The Manor was quiet.  Bruce propped himself up on one arm to stare at Clark, his face a bare outline in the darkness.  By dim starlight, he saw Clark's eyes open, the lashes sweeping up as if they felt Bruce's gaze on them.  Clark smiled very slightly and reached out to touch Bruce's mouth with a gentle finger, almost wonderingly.

There was only one final command left for Bruce to make, unvoiced and silent, spoken only with his eyes:  _Love me._

 __And the unspoken answer, freely given: _Yes._  



End file.
